Author Archives: necromoonyeti

De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas: Music for October (part 3)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Welcome to the next installment of my little month of metal countdown. This time I’ll kick off my list of more traditional black metal material. Again, don’t regard this as any sort of ordering of favorites so much as the order I happened to settle on after a number of considerations.


21. Satyricon – Mother North
I’ve got to confess, I could never get into Satyricon. Most of their music never quite hit home for me. In fact, after some consideration they lost out to a band which I couldn’t really start my list with and retain any hope of people taking this seriously. So in recognition of their significance, I present to you the 21st entry of my top 20, and the one song by them I’ve heard that really strikes me.


20. Dimmu Borgir – Mourning Palace
That band that I couldn’t bear to start my list with is Dimmu Borgir. I don’t care what anyone says, they’ve written some pretty kickass music over the years and have no business being placed alongside Cradle of Filth as “fake” black metal. This song shows it best. Released in 1997, it’s certainly got some competition as the most worthy Borgir song for this list (Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia has some rather impressive ones), but the melody that kicks off at 0:48 has been stuck in my head for a good ten years now and I just couldn’t resist including it.


19. Venom – Countess Bathory
Alright, enough of that. I’ll transition into more common fair with the ultimate proto-black metal band, the group that started it all, and the song by them that appeals to me most. What distinguishes it from thrash is not so much the music itself as the message and mood it presents. Their monumental 1982 release that gave black metal its name really marks the transition from a show of force to an uninhibited glorification of evil.


18. Dark Funeral – The Dawn No More Rises
In 1995, Dark Funeral emerged with a great Swedish-style black metal album, The Secrets of the Black Arts. In 1996, they inexplicably decided that it was too raw and rerecorded the whole thing with an eye towards better production. They haven’t been very good ever since. Unfortunately I could only find the re-recording on youtube, and that is why this song is in 18th place and not much higher. If you can by any means find a copy of the original Secrets of the Black Arts (they’re packaging it as a bonus disc with the re-recording these days), pick it up and recognize what a solid band Dark Funeral briefly were. (Ok, I still like them and their new album is pretty good stuff if you’re into the Swedish style, but their transition is still irritating.)


17. Gehenna – The Shivering Voice of the Ghost
In 1994, often forgotten Gehenna released one of the most unique albums in the early history of black metal. Completely forgoing brutality, First Spell captures the sinister element of black metal that excessive blast beats and crushing guitars have a tendency to disguise.


16. Possessed – The Exorcist
I’m not sure why this song isn’t on more black metal charts. Maybe it’s because by 1985 Bathory had really stolen the show. Maybe it’s because Seven Churches is such a monumental thrash and death album that its black metal significance gets overlooked. But between the most sinister introduction I’ve ever heard and the first fully developed use of tremolo picking in metal I can think of (granted I’m no expert on death or thrash metal, hell, maybe bands had been doing it for years), The Exorcist is, in my mind, as much a black metal song as anything Venom or Bathory were writing at the time. I mean, the album cover says it all.


15. Marduk – Christraping Black Metal
I earlier hinted that I’m not a fan of Swedish black metal, and you won’t see much of it in this list. But Marduk (who I’ll finally get to see live this Friday!) are an amazing exception. Every word they write delights me. (True story: I had an idiotic TA once who said she’d give us a bonus point if we named our next paper after a song. It mentioned environmental reforms a few times, so I asked her if “Fistfucking God’s Planet” would be acceptable.)


14. Ulver – Hymn I: Of Wolf and Fear
Nattens Madrigal isn’t the most raw black metal album I’ve ever heard by accident, and given where Ulver turned afterwards I’m always inclined to think it’s a gimmick until I listen to it again. If this stuff didn’t honestly give me a headache it might be among my most listened-to albums. Every track on it is a masterpiece.


13. Emperor – Cosmic Keys to My Creations & Times
And speaking of masterpieces, Emperor are second only to Noktunal Mortum as my favorite black metal band. Not much really need be said about this album, or Emperor in general for that matter. It’s black metal 101, and it’s incredible.


12. Darkthrone – Kathaarian Life Code
This song might not be quite as memorable as some of Darkthrone’s later works. But when, in August 1991, in a studio in southern Norway, “we are… a blaze… in the northern… sky…” was choked forth into a microphone, the second wave of black metal had begun.


11. Nattefrost – Sluts of Hell
“Filthy bitches of hellish sin.” … If I have a black metal idol it’s Nattefrost. Carpathian Forest is the most underrated band in the scene, and his solo work is just as entertaining.

Seriously. You can’t not love this shit.

Hope you’ve enjoyed. I’ve got three more posts to come. Hopefully I’ll get the last one up by Halloween.

A Celebration for the Death of Man…: Music for October (part 2)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Folk metal, pagan metal, viking metal, these terms all share a common root in black metal, starting with Bathory’s stylistic transition in the late 80s. I decided to break the rest of this down into my top 20 straight up black metal songs and this, my top 25 songs that extend beyond the genre without breaking from it wholesale. I’ve obviously taken a lot of liberties in determining what goes where. Don’t regard this as any sort of ordering of favorites so much as the order I happened to settle on after a number of considerations.

I think black metal is one of the most diverse genres to be found, and rather than trying to divide up a dozen sub-genres, I’d like to highlight through twenty five songs the vast world lying beneath blast beats and tremolo picking.


25. Ceremonial Embrace – Mysterious Fate
I know very little about this band. They appeared out of Finland in 2000 to release one fairly average album and then disappear back into obscurity. The opening track however, Mysterious Fate, is an impressive take on a sound you might associate with Windir – staccato synth supported by sweeping slower moments that focus heavily on melody without ever really ceasing to be black metal.


24. Enslaved – Clouds
One of the original “second wave” black metal bands, Enslaved (along with ex-Emperor frontman Ihsahn) really pioneered the transition from the raw style into something much more complex. I like to think of this song, off their 2008 release Vertebrae, as one of the better tracks to exemplify what you might call “post-black”, a prefix that, as in all other genres, can suggest a dozen different things and might be better seen as an approach to music than a stylistic trait. You might alternatively call this progressive black metal, though I like to restrict my usage of that term.


23. Astrofaes – Path to Burning Space
If black metal in the 90s meant Norway, black metal in the 2000s meant Ukraine. This, one of Astrofaes’s earliest works, really shows both the all-encompassing guitar and the folk elements that have come to define a lot of what is Ukrainian black metal. They weren’t the first to really capitalize on these – that credit belongs to a band I’ll be showcasing frequently herein – but in exploiting them they really helped to make “Ukrainian black metal” something distinct and recognizable.


22. Hellveto – Warpicture
When Poland’s Hellveto first started to make their mark in the early 2000s I remember hearing them described as “war metal”, a term that has since fallen into disuse. While this music would today be called pagan metal, with maybe an “orchestral” additive, at the time it was something really unique, and it still stands apart as decidedly different from the Russian bands, like Arkona and Pagan Reign, that helped pioneer the genre.


21. Nokturnal Mortum – Perun’s Celestial Silver
Welcome to the first of many entries I’ve slotted for what I consider to be the greatest black metal band of all time: Nokturnal Mortum. To merely credit them with the explosion of black metal in Ukraine is to miss how completely unique their music still is. No one has managed this sound before or since – primitivism in its ideal. The shrill, lo-fi guitars, the violent brutality of Russian and Ukrainian that Germanic languages don’t quite encompass, a folk sound that is both beautiful and enraged… This isn’t just a statement about the past, it is a violent declaration of war on the present. It is unfortunate that the band has yet to get over their stance on white supremacy and their virulent antisemitism (this song appears as track 88, a neo-nazi symbol for “Heil Hitler”), but it is also a testament to the authenticity of their sound.


20. Drudkh – Ars Poetica
Drudkh have put out eight albums and one EP since 2003, making them one of the most prolific metal bands on the market. Were that not enough, almost every member has played a role in at least one other prominent Ukrainian black metal band during this time. They’ve had their ups and downs, and 2009’s Microcosmos received its fair share of criticism, but I struggle to find any fault in this track. Dark, intense, reverent, in Drudkh can be heard the same renunciation of the present and praise for a distant past that characterizes Nokturnal Mortum (although without the racist undertones, though a sort of guilt by association has still landed them on many a list of nsbm bands.)


19. Triglav (Триглав) – The Warrior of Honour
Like Nokturnal Mortum, Drudkh, and Astrofaes, Triglav hail from Kharkiv, Ukraine. A lesser known band of the scene, having only released one album, theirs is a pagan metal sound that owes much more to black metal than most.


18. Ihsahn – A Grave Inversed
Enough with Ukraine. I take you now to Ihsahn, former Emperor front-man and possibly the most talented musician to emerge from black metal. “Progressive” anything in metal terms conjures to my mind an obnoxious, pretentious focus on esteeming technical skill over song writing (maybe I just heard way too much Dream Theater when I was in high school), but Ihsahn’s “prog black” indulgence is a glorious and rare exception. His 2010 release, After, might be his best work to date, and this track somehow manages to incorporate a saxophone into black metal and still be fucking awesome. I have ridiculous respect for this man, and I hope upon hearing what he’s done here you will too.


17. Altar of Plagues – Through the Collapse: Watchers Restrained
A lot of what I’ve come to think of as post-black metal feels to be founded in the depressive/atmospheric styles that characterize usbm. (If I may digress, Xasthur provides guest vocals on Agalloch’s monumental Ashes Against the Grain.) Having only really taken form over the past few years, there may be much more to come. If you don’t like what follows the first two minutes of this song, don’t bother listening through it. It doesn’t return to the opening sound. White Tomb as a full album though, and especially the introduction of this track, qualify Ireland’s Altar of Plagues as one of many promising new bands in the sub-genre. This was released in 2009.



16. Nokturnal Mortum – Kolyada
This first track, on the other hand, was released much earlier. Nokturnal Mortum’s third album, Goat Horns, was released in 1997 and showcases the high point in their early sound. The band has gone through three major phases, roughly from 1995-1997, 1998-2003, and 2004 to the present. The band has even on occasion re-recorded earlier songs to fit their updated sound, Perun’s Celestial Silver being an example. (That track, of 1999’s NeChrist, originally appeared in 1995 on Lunar Poetry in a very different form.) Their middle period is my favorite and the one I’ll be primarily sticking too, but I’ve provided a second song here, their 2007 re-recording of Kolyada, in case you’re curious what they currently sound like.


15. Enslaved – As Fire Swept Clean the Earth
I here return to Enslaved for their 2003 album Below the Lights. I throw the term post-black metal around loosely, and while this song might have next to nothing in common with Altar of Plagues, such is the case in other genres where the post- tag comes into play. Enslaved are significant both in their music and in the fact that, having been around since the early 90s, a whole lot of current musicians grew up listening to them and stuck with them over the years. This song can be seen as an early example of what became more common later in the decade, and I don’t think it’s a mere coincidence that this particular band wrote it.


14. Windir – Dance of Mortal Lust
Windir are so unique that I had a hard time figuring out how to fit them in here. Valfar froze to death on a mountain in Norway in 2004, and a tragedy though it may be, I don’t think the creator of this music could have been fated a more fitting end. I chose this song for its accessibility, but I encourage you to seek out his entire brilliant discography.


13. Emperor – The Tongue of Fire
By the final Emperor album, in 2001, it becomes difficult to think of them as “mere” black metal, or anything else for that matter. At this point Ihsahn was writing their music fairly independently from the rest of the band as I understand it, and you can here hear the full amalgamation of his black metal days and his transition into something far more complex.


12. Drudkh – Eternity
Blood in Our Wells, released in 2006, is my favorite Drudkh album, and this my favorite track on it. Their earlier albums receive more praise, and I encourage you to listen to them, but for me this is the apex of their accomplishments.


11. Klabautamann – October
If you’re thinking “this isn’t black metal at all”, you’re probably right, but in the context of the album it concludes it ought to be regarded as such. Der Ort was released in 2005, two years after Enslaved’s Below the Lights, and whether there was any direct influence there or not, I think Germany’s Klabautamann accomplished in this song the most beautiful thing to yet emerge from that extension of black metal.

I’ll be posting the remainder of this list, along with a few others, throughout the month. Hope you enjoyed.

Hail to the Hammer: Music for October (part 1)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

What an awesome month. Forget Christmas, Halloween is where it’s at. Zombie movie marathons, kids walking around dressed as ghouls and barbarians, all the candy in the world, how can you beat it? And considering Christmas has its own devoted genre of music, why shouldn’t this (far superior) autumnal advent?

I thought I’d post up ten of my favorite “songs of the season” for your enjoyment.


Månegarm – Ur själslig död
I don’t know, maybe it’s just their unusual name, but I find myself often forgetting that Månegarm exist. I really shouldn’t. They’ve put out some impressive music.


Finntroll – Trollhammaren
I never saw the English translation of these lyrics until I came across this particular video, and now I love the song even more. “Amongst the shadows rides a beast like a black tree, gripping hard a mighty hammer, looking for weak Christian blood. He is not human, not fragile and weak like you. You will be helpless. No eyes see your end.”


Troll Bends Fir/Troll Gnet El – Strawberry Berserk
No one has ever quite settled on a proper means to transliterate Тролль Гнёт Ель, but whatever we call them they certainly fit the occation. The title of this song makes no sense to me, so I’m just going to assume it’s about getting really drunk.


Korpiklaani – Kohmelo
Korpiklaani manage to release a new album every year, with six since 2003 and another planned for February. As can be seen from their most recent one, this has been no deterrent to their quality. I know I linked this once before, but I can’t resist putting it up again – by far my favorite song by them.


Myrkgrav – Endeoner
Myrkgrav, like so many bands of the genre a solo project, composed this anthem to close his only full length album, Trollskau, Skrømt og Kølabrenning.


Thyrfing – Mjölner
I don’t listen to Thyrfing all that much over all, but Mjölner has one of the most ass-kicking melodies in metal.


Ensiferum – Victory Song
In this ten minute epic the chorus says it all. “Swords in their hands, they killed each and every man who dared to invade their sacred land. Victory songs are rising in the night, telling all of their undying strength and might.”


Pagan Reign – Печаль Сварога (Novgorodian Folk Dance)
Pagan Reign hail from Russia. Though they broke up after their 2006 release, the feel of the band remains largely intact under the offshoot project Tverd (Твердь). Also, this track gets my vote for the greatest intro ever.


Falkenbach – Heathenpride
Falkenbach’s contributions to viking/pagan metal cannot be overstated. Heathenpride tells the tale of a band of missionaries who ravage the northern lands in the name of Christ. With a sacrifice to Odin and Tyr, a pagan king calls for revenge and slaughters the Christian invaders. A happy ending if ever I’ve heard one. As it relates to actual history, Saint Boniface felled the sacred Donar Oak, near Fritzlar, Germany, in 723. Thirty-one years later he was put to the sword by pagans in Friesland, northern Holland. The Christians were, at best, just as barbaric as the pagans they sought to convert, and far less justified in their actions. Boniface’s death can be seen as one of the few pagan triumphs as Christians raped and pillaged their land. Whether Heathenpride is telling this story or some similar one that I am unaware of, the point is still a strong one.


Bathory – Hammerheart
The late Quorthon, father of viking metal, had once intended Twilight of the Gods to be his final album, and this was its closing track. We’ll see him in Valhalla.

Now that the winds call my name
And my star has faded, hardly a glimpse up in the empty space
And the wise one-eyed great father in the sky stilled my flame

For the ones who stood me near
And you few who were me dear
I ask of thee to have no doubts and no fears

For when the great clouds fills the air
And the thunder roars from oh, so far away up in the sky
Then for sure you will know that I’ve reached the joyous hall up high

With my blood brothers at side
All sons of father with one eye
We were all born in the land of the blood on ice

And now all you who might hear my song
Brought to you by the northern wind, have no fear
Though the night may seem so everlasting and forever dark

There will come a golden dawn
At ends of nights for all ye upon whom
The north star always shines

The vast gates to hall up high
Shall stand open wide and welcome you with all its within
And Odin shall hail us bearers of a pounding hammerheart

Probicus Parley 007

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

007

Angry Baby Steps – When in doubt, move out, and the significance of getting Blink early:

I’ve been playing way too many team matches. I jumped back in to two 1v1s today, a loss and then a win, and it showed. I encountered the same trend in both, and I’d like to talk about it.

In my first 1v1 I was up against Terran. I thought “oh my god reapers”, because that’s what you have to think in 4v4 matches, so I went straight for a forge and three cannons before I even scouted the guy. Stupid, stupid, I know, but I’ve played like 40 team games since my last 1v1.

No reapers, no worries, but I immediately felt the setback. Here I was with two gateways and an expansion at the ready, six stalkers with blink to my name, and I didn’t have the slightest clue what I was up against. I sent in a probe, he died to a bunker at the other guy’s neck. I could have attacked. In the very least I could have sent one stalker on a suicide run to see what he was making. But no, I said screw it, my resources are pouring in now, throw down two more Gateways and start spamming stalkers.

I had about ten stalkers when he hit me, up against a bunch of marines. He won out with a few to spare. My cannons could have taken him, but by then it was too late for me. An expansion lost and two gateways beyond the range of my cannons, I packed up and moved on to the next match.

As it turns out when I had those initial six stalkers he had four marines. He’d scouted me early, he’d seen the cannons going down, he knew he had time to spare. Four barracks went down with reactors attached before he ever started massing units, and if you haven’t noticed yet reactors take a really long time. Those stalkers could have in the least decimated his supply line and given me a fighting chance.

My next opponent was zerg. The ling rush is a more realistic fear (in fact it’s probably the most practical way to scout Toss anyway), and again I started tossing down cannons. He sent a wave, they fell, and he reacted just like the other guy. “I have plenty of time now, I’m going straight for hydras/mutas.”

This guy made the mistake though of throwing down a couple sunken in case I countered his rush with zealots; he assumed that was the only unit I could mass any time soon. Well there I was in the same boat as last time pretty much, this time three gateways but no expansion, no stalkers yet because I went “omg six lings” and threw down like four more cannons. I did have a templar archive.

My (very) late scout saw an expansion going down, and I decided hey, waiting around didn’t work last time, so I started researching Blink immediately and resolved myself to go at it with what I had when the research finished.

Turns out he only had lings and those sunken. Just like the other guy he had taken my cannons (didn’t hurt that I started a bunch more during his attack after all) as a sign that I was just going to sit on my ass and let him build up. Stalkers with blink destroy lings without speed, and well, that was the end of it. I just blinked around his sunkens, took out his tech tree, and held position where I could snipe drones forever without a sunken scratching me. gg

What I took out of this was not that you should try to confuse your enemy, screw that. It’s a roll of the dice whether he falls for it, just one step up from cannon rushing. What I learned was that if you screw up big time early on and know that he knows it, you might as well try to retaliate as soon as possible. Maybe it doesn’t work for the pros, I don’t know, but at least in Gold league I was in back to back situations today where my own mistake could have won me the game.

I’m not recommending putting yourself in positions where your opponent rightly thinks he can easily overrun your base in a couple minutes, but if you find yourself there, don’t get flustered, take immediate advantage of it. There’s no sense waiting around to die, and there’s no harm in attacking with five or six units if the situation demands it.

From the other perspective, if your first assault puts you at a clear advantage over the other guy but doesn’t realistically end the game, don’t just think “oh I can tech up now” and quit making units for two or three minutes. Always maintain at least a token mobile force.

On a final note, in both cases I could not have won without Blink. In the top tiers your opponents should have a mobile force so you might want to reconsider, but if you have reason to believe the guy you’re up against doesn’t, Blink can be the game ender. I really like the idea of getting this upgrade early.

Probicus Parley 006

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

006

This is worth watching even if you don’t play the game. I want to post up a replay I watched about a week ago of an absolutely epic Starcraft 2 match, Toss against Zerg. This might be the most ridiculous SC2 match played to date.

The game pits MasterAsia, one of the top 5 zerg players on the US server, against protoss player TTOne, a pro from Brood War. If I remember correctly this is a 1v1 Quick Match, not a planned encounter. The match lasts a little over an hour and can be downloaded as a replay here:

http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/35406

The four youtube videos that follow condense the game down to about half an hour, with commentary provided by HDstarcraft. You can probably skip the third video without missing much, but definitely watch the final few minutes. The word epic was invented for events such as these.




Probicus Parley 005

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

005

Today I want to moan about random team games. More precisely, I want to rant about placement in random team games: If you enjoy 3v3/4v4 random matches and place Bronze in one of them, try to work your way up while you still aren’t very good.

What am I getting at with this? Well, as arbitrary as random teams seem, you’ll find that they really aren’t all about cheesing. More often than not, one or two good lower league players can carry the other one or two to victory in the face of cannon/zerg/reaver rushing, but only when the other guys at least know the basics. In Bronze random teams, a lot of guys don’t know the basics.

That’s the extent of my actual advice here, but allow me to fill up space and time with some griping:

If you place when you don’t know what you’re doing yet, it’s going to be luck of the draw. I ended up in Bronze 3v3 and Silver 4v4, the latter on the backs of better players. But you’ll find out pretty quick that, the more committed gamers being mostly dedicated to 1v1 and 2v2, the skill level of each league gets knocked down a notch. Gold 3v3 players play like Silver 1v1 players. Silver 3v3 players play like Bronze 1v1 players. Bronze 1v1 players play like a diseased pit of vomit and decay. On average.

The plus side is your opponents are often in the same boat, however where in Silver most players will at least do something, in Bronze winning really is all luck of the draw. When you’re new yourself, it’s not so bad. I played a lot of 3v3 early on and very little 4v4 because I felt like I was really pulling my weight in the former and just being a burden in the latter.

Once I got a little bit better I switched focus to the 4v4 Silver league, and I’ve played a lot of really fun games in it. I left Bronze 3v3 with a decent enough record, 18-13 I think, but it wasn’t enough. I made the mistake of not moving up a league before I was good enough that playing Bronze random team games became horrifically tedious.

I played my first ten 3v3 games in a while today. I won two and lost eight. The two wins were easy as pie and the eight losses made me want to pull my hair out, because they were all completely luck of the draw.

Like I said, in low league team randoms you often end up with one guy pulling all the weight. In Bronze you don’t want to be that guy.

Picture yourself blinking stalkers all over your enemies’ bases, decimating all of their resources and losing next to nothing against big slow end-game units, outrunning and sniping, knowing you’re just a little bit better than everyone else in the game. In silver or higher being the best player in the game should put you in decent position to win, because your team mates at least know the fundamentals. In bronze, being the best doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Consider my first 3v3 loss today. Actually, don’t. I’m just going to whine for a paragraph: I played as described above, I must have killed at least sixty workers and dozens of pylons and supply depots, and I managed to make one guy lose a good 12 BCs without dangerously diminishing my forces. Blinking necromoonyeti is a bad mother fucker. I mined out two expansions, I contained three guys by myself for 25 minutes, I was having a blast rolling over new guys who knew enough to mass units but not much else. I couldn’t actually take any of them out 3v1 (we were on Typhon), I’m not that good yet, but I slowed down their build up, kept their forces low, and prevented any semblance of an attack. And then when my forces finally started to crumble to a colossi and immortal pincer supported by battle cruisers I turned to my team mates to wrap up, or at least stop the counterattack while I popped out another solid batch of stalkers. After all, they hadn’t lost a unit all game. I was expecting a 400/400 slaughterhouse. Yeah, they finally rolled in with four 0/0 battlecruisers, about 100 zerglings without speed, a “nuclear launch detected”, and a “dude where are your stalkers blue”. This after close to HALF AN HOUR OF GAME PLAY.

So I went down in a fury of capslocked venom and spite and thought to myself at least I don’t have to go through that again. Yeah right. A pretty similar if much shorter scenario happened seven more times. Me and two guys who had barely opened the box against three guys who at least knew you could build multiple barracks and gateways.

On top of that, my wins weren’t even fun. They were the same situation in reverse, involving me and another guy rolling into a base with forces that each outnumbered all three of the bunkered down cannon and turret-happy opponents.

I am NOT criticizing brand new players for diving into 3v3s and 4v4s. On the contrary, they’re fun alternatives to learning the fundamentals against a computer. But if you want to keep playing them down the road, get promoted out of random team Bronze league while it’s still fun. This will save you from writing angry musings similar to mine in the future. Avoid a scenario that might make Starcraft 2 temporarily tedious.

Edit: I finally broke the eight game losing streak with a fucking disconnect. We were about 20 seconds from the victory screen and b.net booted everyone in the game. I think I’ll retire for the night before I decide to play a fun round of smash the expensive monitor.

Edit 2: I just logged back in and it apparently counted as a win, bumped me into gold league iowjwqoifjqweoifjwqoifjqowijfowiqfjwoqi wfw

Probicus Parley 004

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

004

Today I want to point out the benefits of communicating during 1v1 matches in which you are clearly outclassed. For every two or three players who ignore you or start thrusting their e-peens wildly, one is going to give you some awfully sound advice. My main point: When a player owns you in a particularly intriguing way, don’t just gg and watch the replay, actually talk to them.

I’ll highlight two personal examples to show you what I mean.

I had thought for a while that watching pro replays was only beneficial to advanced players – that at my level you should just learn from experience. This just isn’t true, but it seemed reasonable enough. I was winning most of my matches and my losses were usually close. I must have been doing something right. It was on those rare occasions where a fellow Bronze or Silver league player would ruthlessly crush me without cheesing that I started to think “these guys obviously didn’t place well, how are they so good already?”

So I started to ask, and sometimes I’d get a serious insightful answer. I found out about Day[9]’s tutorials and some of the other resources I’ve used not through scouring endless forum posts, but by being directed to them by better players in-game.

If you ask for information on forums you’re going to end up with a ton of different links to sort through. If you ask for it from individual players who you know from experience are using the kinds of techniques you want to copy, you’ll end up with a few specific, tested, relevant sources.

And you might fair better than that. When I switched from Terran to Toss as my 1v1 race I took an immediate liking to massing zealots while teching up to void rays. This worked consistently for about four games, and then I lost horrifically to a guy who took the exact same approach. I asked him what I did wrong, and he actually invited me to a 2v2 party. Over the course of the next five games (which lead to my only Platinum placement to date), I learned more about playing Protoss quickly and defending the rush and expanding effectively than I could have ever hoped for.

There are a lot of simple things in Starcraft 2 that you can easily overlook – things that general guides aren’t going to tell you and you might not notice in replays. For example, I had no idea that chrono boost could be used on a Nexus. It’s not a secret, just a false assumption on my part. Because I asked a guy in a 1v1 what I did wrong, I had a second set of eyes to catch stupid mistakes like this and point them out to me.

I’m not advocating zealot to void ray as the best Toss technique, and have had better success since by choosing between void rays and stalkers once I have a feel for what the other guy’s doing. Especially against Terran, building two visible stargates and not using them can trick him into massing a bunch of useless vikings. Of course, I’m not advocating that either, I’m just saying that:

Lots of players are ready and willing to help you. If you ask for advice when your base is burning away beyond repair, you just might get it.

Probicus Parley 003

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

003

Here I’d like to just talk about a great source for helping improve your 1v1 game. I’m sure there are plenty of general Starcraft 2 advice columns and videos, and not nearly enough time to track them all. (I certainly don’t expect many readers of this one. <_<) But if you can only keep up with one, I recommend the daily netcast by Sean Plott aka Day[9].

This guy might come off as slightly goofy at first glance, but you’ll catch on fast that he is both really witty and a bottomless source of solid advice. His entertaining commentary makes the replays he dissects fun to watch, and even if his subject of the day seems a bit too advanced for you it’s a great way to get in to watching top league gameplay without feeling overwhelmed or getting bored by your passive role in the matter. Plus the matches he covers are often normal, standard top league games, whereas a lot of the replays you’ll find on forums have been posted specifically for their exceptionality/creativeness.

Note that his post-Beta dailies begin at number 157. Since changes were made to gameplay between the Beta and the official release (I know roaches at least took a major debuff), this seems like a practical place to start watching. His SC2 coverage begins much farther back though, and if you have the time to dig around I imagine he covers much more basic material.

Probicus Parley 002

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

002

I said before I’d try to put the meat of my daily up front. Instead, just read what’s bolded if you’re in a rush.

This morning I played 4 1v1c, a 3v3 win, and a 1v1 loss. The outcome of the last game transitions well into my topic:
Techniques in Bronze league that you should stop using. Specifically:

Small but continuous attacks.
Cannon rushing/surrendering when an opponent successfully cannon rushes.

Approaching the latter first, because it is fresh on my mind and my nerd rage has subsided:

My 1v1 went like this. Toss on Toss, and the guy was at least Gold league because he was fully Favored. I built two gateways and noticed a cannon start to warp in near my extractor. I pulled most of my probes to deal with it, no problem. One more started to warp in, same deal. Three more, and my zealots came out, but I couldn’t handle all three before one finished. At that point I lost a zealot, and with yet another three cannons warping I called him a fag and quit.

It wasn’t until I got to the recap screen that I realized how stupid I was. Check out this build order:
Probe, probe, pylon, probe, probe, probe, forge, probe, probe, pylon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon.
I could have easily had 400 minerals by the time he reached my nexus and a half dozen zealots by the time he reached by gateways. That provides a pretty simple solution. Move to an expansion, take out his defenseless drones, set up a scenario where I have all the time and resources in the world and he has, oh boy oh boy, about twenty photon cannons. Even if he established himself in my old base all turtled up with his cannons, I would hold such a unit advantage that I could render expanding on his part impossible and just mine him out.

So lesson one of the day: Never forget that in early game scenarios your opponent can’t collect resources any faster than you can. I tend to instinctively think “well he’s got at least a gateway and three zealots at this point, even with all these cannons. Any decent player would make at least a basic defense.” No. A gateway and three zealots, that’s 450 minerals – three cannons. There’s no possible way he could support that and still warp in eight inside my main this early on.

If you’re up against a Toss player who feels obligated to cannon rush to win, he’s a) probably not very good in a conventional fight, and b) flat broke. He at best has a single gateway, maybe one zealot. Get enough minerals to expand and let your base fall, taking out his in the process. Don’t try and prevent a cannon rush if you don’t notice it before the first cannon is warping in unless you have ample units. Expand immediately and attack his main with what you’ve got. If he’s a bit more clever at it and starts at your ramp instead of inside your main so your base units can’t get out, it will take him longer to reach you. Tech up so you can transport out.

Some further ideas that I haven’t had a chance to actually employ yet:

The minute you hit his main he’s going to probably warp in every cannon he can right around you and continue to every time he hits 150 minerals. If you have a small force, say three or four zealots, that might be a losing battle. Try to take out his probes first. If they run off, they aren’t mining, so he’s not going to build more cannons. If they run down the ramp, forget about his base and just move your units into a held position so they can never get back up it. (If he has to start building probes from scratch then you should have a nice advantage, and there’s a decent chance he doesn’t even have the 50 minerals for that.) If they just start running around, you’ve got marines, and his cannons aren’t close enough to hit you from behind his minerals, just hold position back there. Only attack his cannons as a last resort; focus on shattering his economy to sub-start game conditions and then just start a new base and wipe him out. You should still have all your workers. When that base finishes it should just feel like a minor setback.

That being said, most higher league players probably know all this, and they have more to lose point-wise from surrendering. Pure cannon rushing should not realistically ever work beyond Bronze/Silver league, so if that’s your strategy, stop.

Secondly, my original intent, small but continuous attacks.

I have won a ton of Bronze league games by rushing early and then just setting my rally point to the heart of the other guy’s base. This works really well in Bronze because the other guy is probably going to just throw every unit he produces straight into the fight. Even if all you manage to do is take out his force and a supply depot or pylon, maybe two or three workers, per push, you’ll win in Bronze. This has backfired for me tremendously against higher league players.

Even if you win the opening assault (which is a lot harder against a pro who’s going to employ chrono boost judiciously/not go for an immediate barracks reactor/etc), the minute that first wave’s dead and they see units marching in by one and two they’re going to just withdraw their guys from the fight for a bit. It only takes a handful of extra units to put a quick stop to it, and then they’ll have an immediate counterattack advantage. I have a lot less to say about this one. Just remember that small but relentless/continuous assaults on an enemy base early on is a good way to get counterattacked and lose. It works really well in Bronze league, but quit doing it.

Aaaand…. right before posting this I decided to play one last 1v1, Toss on Toss. We both went stalker and immortal, both lost all of our probes at one point, but I won because I expanded and he didn’t. I basically treated him exactly how I would treat Very Hard AI, with the exception of having to make some observers at one point. When the match ended I got promoted straight from Bronze to 5th place in a Gold league division. So much for relating to complete noob scenarios. I guess I’m somewhere in the middle now.

And so much for easy wins. :\

Probicus Parley 001

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

001

I would like to start writing a short daily article on Starcraft 2. I will try to play at least one game, maybe a ladder match, maybe a co-op, maybe a custom, every day, and if I learn something new in that match I will write about it. My advantage: I am not very good yet. I will occasionally watch replays, play UMS maps, and seek tutorials, and if they are entertaining or informative I will pass them along. I am not particularly active in any Starcraft 2 communities, so I won’t be choosing the best of the best. I will be choosing what I find useful.

I’m mainly doing this for kicks/to track my own progress, but hopefully this should serve as a tool for players who take the game at least somewhat seriously but are by no means experts – players who have probably heard of Team Liquid but feel a little overwhelmed and subsequently discouraged when they go there. If I write about something that makes you roll your eyes and go “everyone knows that”, good. If I write about something that should make you roll your eyes etc. but doesn’t, better. I will try to throw the meat of my post out early and save my rambling for the unnecessary paragraphs that may follow.

About me: As of this post I am ranked 1st in a lowly Bronze league division, playing only enough to hold onto my lead and training against the computer for a while before I make a move to advance. I currently hold a 22-16 1v1 record, with 10 of those losses coming in my first 12 games. I am in a Platinum league 2v2 team, but have not done much since placing there. I played Brood War obsessively, but seldom competitively.

So without further ado, today’s topic: Training on Very Hard: Don’t Outsmart the AI

Playing against Very Hard AI seems like an excellent way to start preparing yourself to be at least a Gold league level player. You don’t wrack up 1v1 losses and you can learn to break out of your stalker (or in my case void ray)/marine/hydra shell at your own pace. Two key points here:

Stalker/marine/hydra massing will win most Bronze league games, but only because your opponent is playing beyond their means or trying to cheese. If you want to have any chance of winning later on, it’s a good idea to start diversifying now. Don’t spam your way to a higher league and then go oh shit, what do I do now, my opponent actually knows how to micro sentries.

The computer at Very Hard AI can force you to improve, but only if you let it. Play 1v1c custom games, and lots of them, but resist the urge to outsmart the AI when it’s beating you outright. The minute you start tricking it you’re learning nothing. Oh cool I can make it rally all of its marauders to my void ray army. A total waste of time. If you reach a point where you can’t win conventionally, lose and try again. If you feel like you can win without taking at least one expansion, expand anyway. If you know that zerg AI always goes roaches/hydras and you just saw an overlord, scout their base anyway. Maintain map vision coverage even though their expansion order and attack routes are predictable. Force yourself to go through all of the precautions necessary against humans that you wouldn’t take against the computer until you can do so and win consistently in a conventional manner. Only play on ladder maps and always set the computer to Random.

I have only won I think seven Very Hard matches, so if this article was useful we’re probably still in the same boat. The first thing you’re going to catch on to is that you need to pump out units early. A closing point:

Don’t be satisfied with your defense of the Very Hard AI’s opening rush until you can defend it with most of your units still standing. Whether this is directly applicable in high league ladder matches or not is irrelevant. The skills you develop in managing your base quickly early on and microing against the rush effectively without tricking/confusing the AI should be beneficial at all stages of the competitive game.

For tomorrow’s topic I’m kicking around the idea of highlighting techniques that work in Bronze league that you should stop using. The focus: If it doesn’t work against Very Hard AI it’s probably not going to work against higher league human players.

If you have any questions there are probably better people to ask than me, but I would be thrilled to attempt to answer them. Comment away.